Christy Turlington: 'Above all, I hated the catwalk'

Supermodel Christy Turlington has gone from clothes horse to aid worker, with a film on the need for safer childbirth, says Celia Walden.

BY Celia Walden |
16 July 2010

Christy Turlington Photo: CORBIS

Asked whether she has ever considered her looks a curse, the woman sitting opposite me in a polka-dot sundress considers the question coolly. "I used to think so, but I don't any more. When I was 18, and my looks were what I was - and all that I was - it did feel very limiting. It got to the point where I wondered what I was doing. But modelling gave me the kind of confidence that a lot of girls in their teenage years don't have. In the end, I think that the industry saved me from having to be self-conscious."

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Twenty years after the Peter Lindbergh
Vogue
cover that fixed her in the public eye, Christy Turlington - one of the "Big Six" supermodels of the Nineties alongside Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista - seems to have detached herself from the ethereal beauty that propelled her from Walnut Creek, California to the billboards of Times Square when she was just 14.

She is unaffected, and there is a grace to her movements, a result of the yoga she has practised for 20 years. Her light, composed tones conjure up images of a white clapboard family home in the Hamptons, where she and her actor and film-maker husband Ed Burns spend their summers, and the years have brought character and intelligence to the surface of that once perfect, commodified, blank slate. References and reactions to her appearance - the mid-managerial type who welcomes us into the hotel boardroom in which we meet spends an indecent amount of time arranging water bottles on the table - seem to provoke a faint wince of embarrassment. If it's possible to be bored of being beautiful, Turlington is just that.

At 41, the model has found a loftier cause: working with the humanitarian organisation Care (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc.) as an advocate for maternal health, which she is highlighting awareness of in London. It is also the subject of her forthcoming documentary,
No Woman No Cry
. "I hope that the film will be a good vehicle to get policy-makers to put the idea into a more human perspective," she says.

Unlike many celebrities, who seem to pick a cause at random, Turlington's interest in health advocacy was sparked by two important events in her life. When her father, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer in the mid-Nineties, she began campaigning for prevention. "I had been a smoker in my teens and early twenties, but I wanted people to know what it was like to see someone you love die of lung cancer."

A year ago, she went back to her studies for a second time, doing a masters in public health - at her peak, aged 25, she had studied comparative religion and eastern philosophy at New York University and by the age of 30 had founded two businesses, Ayurvedic skincare and Nuala yoga wear.

Her partnership with Care began when she experienced complications giving birth to her daughter, Grace, seven years ago. "I had suffered from postpartum haemorrhage, which was, thankfully, very easily managed in a hospital in New York City, but I learnt later that it was one of the leading causes of death in the developing world. That opened my eyes to a lot of other maternal health issues."

Her aid efforts began in El Salvadore, where Turlington's mother, a former air stewardess, was born ("I was seven months pregnant with my second child then, so the trip felt doubly personal to me"), and took her on to Tanzania and Peru. "I remember driving into Lima as the sun was going down and seeing this beautiful pregnant woman walking her sheep across the hills. I was struck by how vulnerable she looked and I remember thinking: 'Something can be done.' Four years later Care had managed to halve the maternal mortality in one particular town there. Little things helped too: the midwife being able to speak their language, calling the women by their name and not a number, putting them in sheets that were patterned, and not white, which represents death. Ninety per cent of maternal deaths are preventable, so we really have to do a better job."

When I ask whether the ambassadorial role she took up in 2005 is more rewarding than modelling, she looks incredulous. "Gosh yes - there's nothing rewarding about modelling. It was a fun opportunity that allowed me to see the world but spiritually and intellectually there is nothing rewarding about the profession at all."

She pauses, anxious not to sound ungrateful. "Look, a lot more positive things than negative came out of it and I'm proud that I'm still working now, whenever it makes sense."

Not many models over 40 can make the same boast, but all six of the supermodels who haunted a generation of young men in George Michael's
Freedom 90
video possessed a quality that has endured. "We were this oddity that occurred in pop culture at that time," she says. "But I don't think we created anything; I think we just happened to be there at that moment."

So does she buy into the modern lament that supermodels no longer exist? "I don't know." She gives a diplomatic wag of the head. "Maybe there haven't been that many at any one time again, but just think of Gisele [Bündchen] and Daria [Werbowy]. And look at Kate: I met her when I was 18. Her father worked for Pan Am and so did mine, so we had that in common. She was always funnier than everyone else, and savvy. What has kept her going all this time is the fact that nothing takes her over; it's she who takes over."

Yet most of the new girls - Gisele aside - pale in comparison with the glamazons of the Eighties and Nineties who didn't "wake up for less than $10,000 a day". "Maybe our body types were more feminine, but I often felt that we were too glamorous," she says. "Because I'm not very glamorous it didn't feel true to me. I relate far more to the fashion of today than the Chanel miniskirts and Versace jackets of that time. Plus, having to wear all that make-upe_SLps what a waste! Cindy was much more that kind of persona; I don't think the 'sexy girl' thing is my image at all - I get more attention from females."

Surely the buzz of walking down a catwalk must be hard to replicate? "Actually, I hated that part more than anything," she smiles. "I just remember thinking: 'How fast can I get to the end and back again?'"

Other challenges were more memorable. "I remember doing a shoot for Herb Ritts, hanging off the Eiffel Tower - that wasn't your usual day at the office. It was terrifying and in the end you couldn't really tell how high I was because the photographer was scared of heights so he was quite far away from me. It only happened rarely, but sometimes you did feel that you were contributing to a piece of art." Looking at photographs of herself quickly became an emotionless process. "The make-up, lighting and photographer turn you into a different person: I could never prefer that person, because that would be dangerous."

Turlington has carried the same logic through to the ageing process, which, judging by the faint lines by her eyes, hasn't caused her much anxiety. "Getting older is baggage for so many people but I don't spend time on things I can't control. Wrinkles don't scare me; they're a part of life and I will and do embrace them, but I look at surgery and that scares me. Actually," she narrows those feline eyes, "I think there are more pressures on actresses these days than models - we're being celebrated for being older at the moment. I get asked to do campaigns all the time that aren't designed for a 41-year-old and I feel good about accepting those jobs."

That ability to keep working while pursuing a more rewarding quest goes some way to explain Turlington's obvious contentment. "With every passing year I feel more fulfilled," she admits. "I am only just coming into a phase of my life where I can say that I feel passionate about what I do. Oh and in the morning," she adds brightly, "I'm hoping to meet Nick Clegg."